It’s always great fun for me to read or listen to news about aircraft accidents or incidents. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I enjoy the tragedy. What makes me laugh are the uninformed comments made by every Tom, Dick and Harry the press can find in the vicinities of the event. What can I possibly learn from a person who witnessed the accident but who has no technical knowledge whatsoever to analyze the fact? At most, what they felt when they saw the accident, not more than that. It’s great comedy material, though.

For example, a Delta Aircraft performed an emergency landing at JFK airport this week, according to the news as seen here, here and here, because one of the wheels didn’t come down when commanded by the pilots. One of the passengers shot a video of the landing which has been circulating through the Web; Watch the video below, and check out the comments it has triggered:

“The broader question here is why they didn’t go through the usual procedures when landing gear is malfunctioning – no go-around to give emergency crews more time to mobilize? No dumping fuel to minimize the explosion if the tanks get lit? You sure you don’t wanna try dropping that landing gear a few more times? The communication around this seems more along the lines of “Hey guys, our landing gear isn’t working. Here we come!” Hopefully as details are released, we’ll find out that they jumped through all these hoops. I surely hope if I’m on the next plane with gear issues, we’ll spend at least a few minutes flying in a circle to make sure we’ve tried everything.”

“I would have murdered that stewardess after landing. ‘heads down stay down’ nothing could make me feel more unsafe.”

“I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not getting on any flight that has a number that includes 5, 4, 9, and 1 anytime soon. What a bizarre coincidence.”

So, if we can’t be informed by these coments, at least we can certainly be entertained…